Pomegranate & Pistachio Kugelhopf #BundtBakers

A sweet brown sugar rich dough laden with cinnamon and pistachios, topped with a pretty pink pomegranate glaze, this is my choice for Julys Fruit and Nut theme for #BundtBakers. A big thanks to Shilpi of Simply Veggies for choosing and hosting this month’s theme. You can find the rest of this month’s bundts at the end of this post.

I chose to go down a different route for this month’s theme, instead of baking a cake I went down the sweetened yeast risen road and baked a kugelhopf in my Nordic Ware Kugelhopf tin. I adore this tin and love the way it shaped my bread. It’s not as traditional kugelhopf as mine is brown sugar and cinnamon rich with a little crunch from roughly chopped pistachios, not almond as is in a traditional one. Also missing from a traditional version is dried fruits and cherry liquor. The only thing remotely authentic is the shape of the tin I baked it in.

The theme is fruit and nuts. My nut of choice are pistachios and my fruit, pomegranate. A slight Persian feel this bake has. Cinnamon is used a lot in Persian cooking so it felt right combining these 3 ingredients. Sweet bread like this is one of my favourite treats to eat, and covered in a powdered sugar glaze, even more irresistible.

I’ve never used pomegranate in baking before, let alone bought one so I was rather excited to buy and use it. I got all the ruby-red seeds out leaving some for adornment and crushing the rest to get some juice which I added to some powdered sugar and drizzled all over the top.

The sweet glaze contrasts perfectly to the not so sweet dough, cinnamon-y with slight caramel-y notes from the brown sugar, this bread is one you’re not going to be able to stop tearing at. Crunchy crown like jewels scattered on top give you sweet bursts of sweetness and nuttiness.

Overall it’s very well-balanced in terms of sweetness, texture and flavour. Despite the addition of yeast, it didn’t take long to assemble at all, it only needed one rise and baked for a mere 30 minutes. The weather here at the minute has been slightly cooler, so this is perfect for cool days with not much to do, it’ll accompany a mug of coffee and tea very nicely.

Now let’s check out what the other #BundtBakers baked for July’s theme of Fruit and Nuts.

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all our of lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

Place the butter in a small saucepan and let it simmer until brown, remove from heat. Meanwhile, generously grease a kugelhopf tin and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer add the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, cinnamon, milk, egg, warm water and melted butter and mix using the dough hook for 5 minutes or until soft and elastic. Add a handful of pistachios towards the end so they incorporated with the dough.

Place the dough in your prepared tin and leave in a warm place to double in size for an hour. Pre-heat the oven to 200C (400F).

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and hollow once tapped.

Leave in the tin on a wire rack for 20 minutes then remove from tin to cool completely.

Once completely cool, you make the glaze by added to a medium size bowl along with the pomegranate juice. Mix to combine and drizzle over the top. Scatter some pomegranate seeds and pistachios over the top.

Looks soooo beautiful, Laura, I do loove pomegranate (we have our own tree ^_^) so I am certainly going to try your recipe! Looks like a very delicious and festive cake!! And thanks for visiting my blog🙂 Sunshine and -xx-from Spain – Lara

Pomegranate and pistachios…never heard of this combo before, reason enough to try this ASAP! beautiful looking cake Laura especially the glaze and all the decoration that you have done, just makes it more tempting🙂

Looks absolutely yummy! I am German, and I noticed your different spelling of this treat. We call it a Gugelhupf. That got me thinking about this weird name and I had to google it. Supposedly ‘gugel’ is an old word for hat or cap and ‘hupf’ (which means to hop) could refer to the fact that the dough rises.

Welcome to Baking in Pyjamas!

Hello I'm Laura and welcome to Baking in Pyjamas. I have a slight obsession for all things baking related and this is where I'll be sharing a sweet selection of do-able and scrumptious recipes. I'm still learning so why don't you follow me on my journey.

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